At a state auction, I got a dual processor 2009 Mac Pro for $250. I did spend a bit on extra hardware as it's a server and a multiseat desktop. It has 2 low watt AMD GCN cards, 48 GB RAM, 2 hexacore processors, 4 SSDs and hard drives. It's quiet and is good enough to have 1 seat playing Tomb Raider while the other is playing Hitman while having nginx forwarding to Tomcat which starts Guacamole which connects to GDM so I can get my desktop in a browser as well as other more typical stuff like sshd.
I read a lot of UNIX oral history stuff and Dennis Ritchie's comments about a community forming around a single computer always stuck with me. Now, I have something like that and am enjoying the experience. If I can figure out how to add more seats, I'll enjoy it even more.
